DOCSLIB.ORG

A Historical Reinterpretation of Mississippi Governor Ross R

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Historical Reinterpretation of Mississippi Governor Ross R 九州産業大学国際文化学部紀要 第67号 37－86（2017） “But I Have to Be Confronted with Your Troops”: A Historical Reinterpretation of Mississippi Governor Ross R. Barnett’s Segregationist Defiance toward the John F. Kennedy Administration over the 1962 Desegregation Ordeal at the University of Mississippi Yasuhiro KATAGIRI* “Friends, I am a Mississippi segregationist. And I am proud of it.” ̶Mississippi governor-elect Ross R. Barnett, September 8, 19591 “Mr. President, please. Why don’t you . can’t you give an order up there to remove [James H.] Meredith [from the University of Mississippi campus]?” ̶Mississippi governor Ross R. Barnett, September 30, 19622 Ⅰ In the history of the American civil rights movement during the first half of the 1960s, one of the most dramatic and defining moments came about in the fall of 1962 when the segregationist Mississippi governor, Ross R. Barnett, staged a series of well-publicized̶but eventually failed̶attempts to deny the entrance of a prospective black student, James H. Meredith, to the University of Mississippi in Oxford, and thus to defy the federally mandated racial desegregation at the all- white state-operated educational institution, better known as Ole Miss. A little over eight years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had unanimously outlawed legally imposed racial segregation in public schools in its epoch-making Brown v. ― 37 ― Yasuhiro KATAGIRI ruling in May 1954.3 Upon hearing the High Court’s decision, Board of Education the enraged white politicians and officials in the Jim Crow American South initiated their massive resistance to the desegregation decree and the intensifying crusade for black civil rights.4 Those in Mississippi, to be sure, were no exception, and no public school in the state̶neither its elementary and secondary schools, nor its colleges and universities̶would become racially integrated until Meredith’s eventual success in desegregating Ole Miss (prior to his success, Meredith’s enrollment was physically blocked twice by Governor Barnett and once by Lieutenant Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr.). In the nation's capital, meanwhile, John F. Kennedy―for fourteen months between September 1962 and October 1963 during his suddenly curtailed presidency―had recorded many of his White House telephone conversations, having a recording device called a Dictaphone hooked up to a telephone in the Oval Office.5 Two decades after the president’s untimely death, in the early summer of 1983, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston, Massachusetts, set out to open some portions of the Kennedy White House recordings to the general public. And among them were those telephone recordings related to the 1962 University of Mississippi desegregation crisis.6 Ever since then, historians and journalists alike have utilized the verbatim contents of the telephone conversations held between the Kennedy administration and the Barnett administration, and they have incorporated those contents into their historical narratives of the Ole Miss crisis in particular and America’s volatile civil rights years in general. As the once termed them, the disclosed New York Times presidential recordings relevant to the Ole Miss desegregation ordeal are surely qualified to be “History’s Raw Materials,” and they provide us with a fascinating glimpse of the Kennedy administration’s inner workings of trying to grapple with the problems of racial bigotry prevalent not only in Mississippi, but also in the entire American South, of the 1960s.7 Much has been narrated about the nature of the state-federal confrontation arising from the University of Mississippi crisis, but there still remains the widely held interpretation and representation̶or misinterpretation and misrepresentation, to be more precise̶that the showdown was fought between a confident and immovably determined president of the United ― 38 ― “But I Have to Be Confronted with Your Troops”: A Historical Reinterpretation of Mississippi Governor Ross R. Barnett’s Segregationist Defiance toward the John F. Kennedy Administration over the 1962 Desegregation Ordeal at the University of Mississippi States, and a shrewd and unyieldingly stiff-necked governor of an intransigent southern state. What the Ole Miss incident-related telephone conversations̶ “History’s Raw Materials”̶reveals and highlights, however, is a set of much different̶and oftentimes tormented̶faces and postures of the two contesting executives (and their respective advisors). Abounded in their verbal exchanges were the participants’ hesitations, agonies, and human frailties. While laying considerable emphasis on Mississippi's social and political climate of the day, which dictated the preservation of white supremacy as an overarching imperative, the author, in the following pages, revisits the substance of the secret telephone negotiations held between President Kennedy (as well as his younger brother, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy) and Governor Barnett over the 1962 University of Mississippi desegregation ordeal. And in so doing, the author intends to offer a historical reinterpretation on what the both administrations were really up against in the face of the civil rights crisis. Ⅱ From a humble beginning on a small farm located in the hamlet of Standing Pine in Leake County, Mississippi, Ross Barnett, being the youngest of ten children, worked his way through local public schools and Mississippi College as a barber, janitor, and kitchenware salesperson. After working for two years as principal of Pontotoc High School in north Mississippi, he entered the University of Mississippi Law School. Upon graduation, Barnett began his law practice in Jackson in 1926 and subsequently became the senior partner of a large law firm in the state capital. Standing over six feet tall and being a man with “a mixture of flamboyance and down-to-earth seriousness,” the future Mississippi governor seldom failed in attracting and fascinating people around him with his “energy, rhetoric, and antics.”8 Following his unsuccessful runs for governor in 1951 and 1955, Barnett once again entered the gubernatorial race in 1959̶five years after the Supreme Court rendered the decision̶where all three major Brown candidates vigorously hammered down on racial segregation. Among those contenders, however, the candidate who “could crack the loudest segregation whip” was Barnett.9 Billing himself as a “vigorous segregationist” during his ― 39 ― Yasuhiro KATAGIRI gubernatorial campaign, Barnett pledged that he would “owe allegiance only to my God, my conscience, . and the good people of my native state” in striving to “maintain our heritage, our customs, . [and] segregation of the races.”10 After the election was over, on September 8, 1959, the very first postelection public appearance of the now governor-elect took place at a gathering sponsored by the Citizens’ Council̶the civil rights era’s most vocal and widespread private organization dedicated to the segregationist cause and anti- enterprises in the entire white South.11 Founded less than two months Brown after the decision in the Mississippi Delta county of Sunflower (the Brown home county of the state's all-powerful white supremacist, U.S. senator James O. Eastland), the Citizens' Council in Mississippi was particularly emphatic and influential.12 “Friends,” the elated governor-elect spoke to the appreciative white audience of nearly one thousand at the postelection gathering, “I am a Mississippi segregationist. And I am proud of it.”13 Mississippi governor-elect Ross R. Barnett making his very first postelection public appearance before a gathering sponsored by the segregationist Citizens’ Council at the Heidelberg Hotel in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, on September 8, 1959. Wearing a white carnation on his lapel to signify white Mississippians’ determination to preserve and protect the state’s racial status quo, Barnett told the appreciative audience that “mixing the races leads inevitably to the production of an inferior mongrel.” (In the author’s possession by courtesy of the late Erle E. Johnston Jr. of Forest, Mississippi, a former director of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission) On January 19, 1960, Barnett took his oath of office as Mississippi’s fifty-third governor. “You know and I know,” he took a solemn pledge in his inaugural address, “that we will maintain segregation in Mississippi at all costs.”14 As his ― 40 ― “But I Have to Be Confronted with Your Troops”: A Historical Reinterpretation of Mississippi Governor Ross R. Barnett’s Segregationist Defiance toward the John F. Kennedy Administration over the 1962 Desegregation Ordeal at the University of Mississippi predecessor, James P. Coleman, had promised in his inaugural address four years earlier, when Barnett assumed his official oath, “the separation of the races in Mississippi” was still “left intact.”15 And the new governor, who was destined to symbolize the American South’s harshest politics of segregationist defiance, was determined to keep it that way “at all costs.” Paralleling Barnett's unwavering resolve, no sooner had the 1960 state legislature been convened than the lawmakers flooded the legislative body with scores of bills designed to further strengthen Mississippi’s racial and racist policy. By the time the legislative session adjourned on May 11, twenty-one new segregationist bills had been approved and signed into law by the governor. Among those was House Bill No. 741, which provided that “the board of trustees of institutions of higher learning may, at their discretion, determine who will be
Load more

Recommended publications
  • William F. Winter and the Politics of Racial Moderation in Mississippi
    WILLIAM WINTER AND THE POLITICS OF RACIAL MODERATION 335 William F. Winter and the Politics of Racial Moderation in Mississippi by Charles C. Bolton On May 12, 2008, William F. Winter received the Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Foundation, which honored the former Mississippi governor for “championing public education and racial equality.” The award was certainly well deserved and highlighted two important legacies of one of Mississippi’s most important public servants in the post–World War II era. During Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s presentation of the award, he noted that Winter had been criticized “for his integrationist stances” that led to his defeat in the gubernatorial campaign of 1967. Although Winter’s opponents that year certainly tried to paint him as a moderate (or worse yet, a liberal) and as less than a true believer in racial segregation, he would be the first to admit that he did not advocate racial integration in 1967; indeed, much to his regret later, Winter actually pandered to white segregationists in a vain attempt to win the election. Because Winter, over the course of his long career, has increasingly become identified as a champion of racial justice, it is easy, as Senator Kennedy’s remarks illustrate, to flatten the complexity of Winter’s evolution on the issue CHARLES C. BOLTON is the guest editor of this special edition of the Journal of Mississippi History focusing on the career of William F. Winter. He is profes- sor and head of the history department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
    [Show full text]
  • LYCEUM-THE CIRCLE HISTORIC DISTRICT Page 1 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form
    NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARK NOMINATION NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 LYCEUM-THE CIRCLE HISTORIC DISTRICT Page 1 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 1. NAME OF PROPERTY Historic Name: Lyceum-The Circle Historic District Other Name/Site Number: 2. LOCATION Street & Number: University Circle Not for publication: City/Town: Oxford Vicinity: State: Mississippi County: Lafayette Code: 071 Zip Code: 38655 3. CLASSIFICATION Ownership of Property Category of Property Private: Building(s): ___ Public-Local: District: X Public-State: X Site: ___ Public-Federal: Structure: ___ Object: ___ Number of Resources within Property Contributing Noncontributing 8 buildings buildings 1 sites sites 1 structures structures 2 objects objects 12 Total Total Number of Contributing Resources Previously Listed in the National Register: ___ Name of Related Multiple Property Listing: NPS Form 10-900 USDI/NPS NRHP Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) OMB No. 1024-0018 LYCEUM-THE CIRCLE HISTORIC DISTRICT Page 2 United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service National Register of Historic Places Registration Form 4. STATE/FEDERAL AGENCY CERTIFICATION As the designated authority under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, I hereby certify that this ____ nomination ____ request for determination of eligibility meets the documentation standards for registering properties in the National Register of Historic Places and meets the procedural and professional requirements set forth in 36 CFR Part 60. In my opinion, the property ____ meets ____ does not meet the National Register Criteria.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil Rights During the Kennedy Administration, 1961-1963
    CIVIL RIGHTS DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION, 1961-1963 Part 1: The White House Central Files and Staff Files and the President's Office Files UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA BLACK STUDIES RESEARCH SOURCES: Microfilms from Major Archival and Manuscript Collections August Meier and Elliott Rudwick General Editors CIVIL RIGHTS DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION, 1961-1963 Part 1: The White House Central Files and Staff Files and the President's Office Files CIVIL RIGHTS DURING THE KENNEDY ADMINISTRATION, 1961-1963 Part 1: The White House Central Files and Staff Files and the President's Office Files A collection from the holdings of The John F. Kennedy Library, Boston, Massachusetts Edited by Carl M. Brauer Associate Editor Robert Lester Guide Compiled by Martin Schipper A microfilm project of UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS OF AMERICA, INC. 44 North Market Street • Frederick, MD 21701 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Civil rights during the Kennedy administration, 1961-1963 [microform]. (Black studies research sources: microfilms from major archival and manuscript collections) Contents: pt. 1. The White House central files and staff files and the president's office files/ edited by Carl M. Brauer. 1. Civil rights—United States—History—Sources. 2. United States—Politics and government—1961-1963— Sources. 3. John F. Kennedy Library. I. Brauer, Carl M., 1946- . II. John F. Kennedy Library. [JC599] 323.4'0973 87-2061 ISBN 0-89093-900-4 (pt. 1) Copyright ® 1986 by University Publications of America, Inc. All rights reserved. ISBN
    [Show full text]
  • Fighting Back (1957-1962) NARRATOR: in 1954, the Supreme Court Said Black Children Would Go to School with White
    Fighting Back (1957-1962) NARRATOR: In 1954, the Supreme Court said black children would go to school with white. The South said, never. GOV. ORVAL FAUBUS: In the name of God, whom we all revere, in the name of liberty we hold so dear, in the name of decency, which we all cherish, what is happening in America? NARRATOR: Was this the start of a new Civil War? [singing] WILLIAM CARTER: Desegregation is against the Bible. I find my scripture for this in Genesis 9:27, where God did segregate and separate the three sons of Noah, sending one out to be a servant while the other two remained in the Tabernacle. I say that God has given the word, his Bible. It ain't right for men to end the curse that He's placed upon any human flesh. SEN. JAMES EASTLAND: All the people of the South are in favor of segregation. And Supreme Court or no Supreme Court, we are going to maintain segregated schools down in Dixie. SHERIFF MEL BAILEY: It wasn't funny then, it's still not funny. But suddenly we have the Fourteenth Amendment that took 100 years, brought on by the Civil War, suddenly must be complied with. Equal treatment under the law. And that was a resistance. They are not going to get equal treatment. What do you mean? Go to school with my little darling? That is why resistance. NARRATOR: In the late 1950s, the battle for Civil Rights was fought in the classrooms of the South. The Supreme Court had rules in a case called Brown vs.
    [Show full text]
  • Supreme Court of the United States ———— RIMS BARBER, Et Al., Petitioners, V
    No. 17-___ IN THE Supreme Court of the United States ———— RIMS BARBER, et al., Petitioners, v. GOVERNOR PHIL BRYANT, et al., Respondents. ———— On Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ———— PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI ———— PAUL SMITH DONALD B. VERRILLI, JR. 600 New Jersey Ave. NW Counsel of Record Washington, DC 20001 GINGER D. ANDERS ADELE M. EL-KHOURI MUNGER, TOLLES & OLSON LLP 1155 F Street NW 7th Floor Washington, D.C. 20004 (202) 220-1100 [email protected] Counsel for Petitioners October 10, 2017 ROBERT B. MCDUFF SUSAN L. SOMMER 767 North Congress Street LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & Jackson, MS 39202 EDUCATION FUND, INC. 120 Wall Street, 19th Floor BETH L. ORLANSKY New York, NY 10005 MISSISSIPPI CENTER FOR JUSTICE ELIZABETH LITTRELL P.O. Box 1023 LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & Jackson, MS 39215-1023 EDUCATION FUND, INC. 730 Peachtree Street Suite 640 Atlanta, GA 30308 i QUESTIONS PRESENTED In Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584 (2015), this Court held that the Constitution entitles same- sex couples to join in civil marriage on the same terms as different-sex couples. In response, Missis- sippi enacted the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, Miss. Code Ann. § 11-62-1 et seq. (2016) (“HB 1523”). HB 1523 grants broad immunity to any person who commits enumerated acts of discrimination on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions opposing mar- riage of same-sex couples; transgender individuals; and sexual relations outside of a male-female mar- riage. The court of appeals held that petitioners, who do not share the endorsed beliefs, lack standing un- der the Establishment Clause because the religious endorsement takes the form of a statute rather than a religious display that they can physically encoun- ter, and held that they lack standing under the Equal Protection Clause because they have suffered no unequal treatment.
    [Show full text]
  • Barber V. Bryant, No
    Case 3:16-cv-00442-CWR-LRA Document 35 Filed 06/30/16 Page 1 of 60 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF MISSISSIPPI NORTHERN DIVISION RIMS BARBER; CAROL BURNETT; PLAINTIFFS JOAN BAILEY; KATHERINE ELIZABETH DAY; ANTHONY LAINE BOYETTE; DON FORTENBERRY; SUSAN GLISSON; DERRICK JOHNSON; DOROTHY C. TRIPLETT; RENICK TAYLOR; BRANDIILYNE MANGUM- DEAR; SUSAN MANGUM; JOSHUA GENERATION METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH; CAMPAIGN FOR SOUTHERN EQUALITY; and SUSAN HROSTOWSKI CAUSE NO. 3:16-CV-417-CWR-LRA V. consolidated with CAUSE NO. 3:16-CV-442-CWR-LRA PHIL BRYANT, Governor; JIM HOOD, DEFENDANTS Attorney General; JOHN DAVIS, Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services; and JUDY MOULDER, State Registrar of Vital Records MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER The plaintiffs filed these suits to enjoin a new state law, “House Bill 1523,” before it goes into effect on July 1, 2016. They contend that the law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The Attorney General’s Office has entered its appearance to defend HB 1523. The parties briefed the relevant issues and presented evidence and argument at a joint hearing on June 23 and 24, 2016. The United States Supreme Court has spoken clearly on the constitutional principles at stake. Under the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, a state “may not aid, foster, or Case 3:16-cv-00442-CWR-LRA Document 35 Filed 06/30/16 Page 2 of 60 promote one religion or religious theory against another.” Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104 (1968). “When the government acts with the ostensible and predominant purpose of advancing religion, it violates that central Establishment Clause value of official religious neutrality, there being no neutrality when the government’s ostensible object is to take sides.” McCreary Cnty., Kentucky v.
    [Show full text]
  • Constance Baker Motley, James Meredith, and the University of Mississippi
    CONSTANCE BAKER MOTLEY, JAMES MEREDITH, AND THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI Denny Chin* & Kathy Hirata Chin** INTRODUCTION In 1961, James Meredith applied for admission to the University of Mississippi. Although he was eminently qualified, he was rejected. The University had never admitted a black student, and Meredith was black.1 Represented by Constance Baker Motley and the NAACP Legal De- fense and Educational Fund (LDF), Meredith brought suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, alleging that the university had rejected him because of his race.2 Although seven years had passed since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education,3 many in the South—politicians, the media, educators, attor- neys, and even judges—refused to accept the principle that segregation in public education was unconstitutional. The litigation was difficult and hard fought. Meredith later described the case as “the last battle of the * United States Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. ** Senior Counsel, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. 1. See Meredith v. Fair, 305 F.2d 343, 345–46 (5th Cir. 1962) (setting forth facts); Meredith v. Fair, 298 F.2d 696, 697–99 (5th Cir. 1962) (same). The terms “black” and “Afri- can American” were not widely used at the time the Meredith case was litigated. Although the phrase “African American” was used as early as 1782, see Jennifer Schuessler, The Term “African-American” Appears Earlier than Thought: Reporter’s Notebook, N.Y. Times: Times Insider (Apr. 21, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/04/21/ the-term-african-american-appears-earlier-than-thought-reporters-notebook/ (on file with the Columbia Law Review); Jennifer Schuessler, Use of ‘African-American’ Dates To Nation’s Earliest Days, N.Y.
    [Show full text]
  • Defeat in Decision, Victory in Action: a Critical Legal Rhetoric Reading of U.S
    Communication Law Review Volume 12, Issue 1 Defeat in Decision, Victory in Action: A Critical Legal Rhetoric Reading of U.S. v. Patridge et al. (1963) William Harrel Lawson, University of Maryland, College Park Scott Alan Smith, Westat U.S. v. Patridge et al. (1963) was one of the first modern Civil Rights cases tried in Federal Court. While all five defendants were found not guilty after a short deliberation by the jury, the prosecution claimed a moral victory just for trying the case as it signaled to the rest of the nation the Federal Government’s newfound willingness to hear civil rights cases—including those in the Deep South. Keywords: Hamer, Winona, Patridge, Mississippi, civil rights, federal trial Neil R. McMillen notes, “Mississippi, the pioneer state in the southern disfranchisement movement, had no peer in the denial of Black rights.”1 No other state in the union was as unified and consistent in its effort to crush integration. All forms of government, the Governor, judges, and local law enforcement defiantly ignored federal decrees and judicial rulings aimed to protect Blacks’ rights to vote, travel, and assemble. Instead, they maliciously tried to make examples of those who would dare to infiltrate their community and threaten the status quo. The federal government’s criminal reluctance to commit to the protection of equal rights needed changing in Mississippi. However, the state’s government firmly believed that they were stronger and more committed than the “Yankees” in Washington, D.C., and that they were in the moral and legal right to deny equal protection.
    [Show full text]
  • Not with Our Tears
    FISSFINAL 12/10/2003 12:20 AM Not with Our Tears Owen Fiss† He loved to tease me. He knew my heart was pure, but he was amused by the excesses of reason to which I was often drawn. Burke aspired to a workable government. Quixote-like, I wanted something more perfect—a heaven on earth. Burke understood the foolishness of this dream but always tempered his reserve with kindness and made light of our differences. In the summer of 1963, between my first and second years of law school, I worked at the firm of Covington & Burling in Washington. The work was dreadful. I spent my days scanning invoices for “corn syrup unmixed” to see if I could detect a violation of the Robinson-Patman Act. It was very hard for me to keep going, but soon I noticed that all the earlier memoranda in the file had been initialed by Burke, who, having left the firm in 1960 to become the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Rights Division, was then at the center of the public life of the nation. So I managed to convince myself to persist, because corn syrup unmixed and all that it implied seemed indispensable training for public lawyers. The March on Washington took place in August 1963. I had returned to Harvard shortly before to complete my legal studies, but soon, as the civil rights cause took on greater urgency, I found myself uneasy with the career plans I had formulated. History was being made and I wanted to be a part of it.
    [Show full text]
  • The Lemon Project: a Journey of Reconciliation Report of the First Eight Years
    THE LEMON PROJECT | A Journey of Reconciliation I. SUMMARY REPORT The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation Report of the First Eight Years SUBMITTED TO Katherine A. Rowe, President Michael R. Halleran, Provost February 2019 THE LEMON PROJECT STEERING COMMITTEE Jody Allen, Stephanie Blackmon, David Brown, Kelley Deetz, Leah Glenn, Chon Glover, ex officio, Artisia Green, Susan A. Kern, Arthur Knight, Terry Meyers, Neil Norman, Sarah Thomas, Alexandra Yeumeni 1 THE LEMON PROJECT | A Journey of Reconciliation I. SUMMARY REPORT Executive Summary In 2009, the William & Mary (W&M) Board of Visitors (BOV) passed a resolution acknowledging the institution’s role as a slaveholder and proponent of Jim Crow and established the Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation. What follows is a report covering the work of the Project’s first eight years. It includes a recap of the programs and events sponsored by the Lemon Project, course development, and community engagement efforts. It also begins to come to grips with the complexities of the history of the African American experience at the College. Research and Scholarship structure and staffing. Section III, the final section, consists largely of the findings of archival research and includes an Over the past eight years, faculty, staff, students, and overview of African Americans at William & Mary. community volunteers have conducted research that has provided insight into the experiences of African Americans at William & Mary. This information has been shared at Conclusion conferences, symposia, during community presentations, in As the Lemon Project wraps up its first eight years, much scholarly articles, and in the classroom.
    [Show full text]
  • Key Moments in Black History, Starting in the 1600S and Ending in 2014
    Key moments in Black History, starting in the 1600s and ending in 2014. DATE KEY MOMENTS IN BLACK HISTORY 1619 The first African slaves arrive in Virgina, 1746 Lucy Terry, an enslaved person in 1746, becomes the earliest known black American poet when she writes about the last American Indian attack on her village of Deerfield, Massachusetts. Her poem, Bar's Fight, is not published until 1855 1773 Phillis Wheatley's book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral is published, making her the first African American to do so. Slavery is made illegal in the Northwest Territory. The U.S Constitution states that Congress may not ban the slave trade until 1808. 1793 Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin greatly increases the demand for slave labor A federal fugitive slave law is enacted, providing for the return slaves who had escaped and crossed state lines. 1800 Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved African-American blacksmith, organizes a slave revolt intending to march on Richmond, Virginia. The conspiracy is uncovered, and Prosser and a number of the rebels are hanged. Virginia's slave laws are consequently tightened 1808 Congress bans the importation of slaves from Africa. 1820 The Missouri Compromise bans slavery north of the southern boundary of Missouri. 1822 Denmark Vesey, an enslaved African-American carpenter who had purchased his freedom, plans a slave revolt with the intent to lay siege on Charleston, South Carolina. The plot is discovered, and Vesey and 34 coconspirators are hanged. 1831 Nat Turner, an enslaved African-American preacher, leads the most significant slave uprising in American history.
    [Show full text]
  • Barber, Frank Interviewer
    Copyright protected. Use of this item beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission of Delta State University is required to publish or reproduce. Contact University Archives, Delta State University, (662) 846-4780. Interviewee: Barber, Frank Interviewer: Mohammed, Liz Date: October 20, 1983 LM: This is an interview with Frank Barber. Okay, please give us a brief biographical sketch to include your date of birth, place of birth, and schools attended. FB: Well, I was born April 2, 1929, in Hot Springs, Garland Co., Arkansas. My mother was born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1902 and we happened to be in Hot Springs because my mother had moved there five years before my birth for her health. My father had to sell his business and relocate in Hot Springs. But apparently, my mother recovered sufficiently to have me in 1929. I only lived in Hot Springs about three years and I grew up in Hattiesburg, Forrest Co. Mississippi. And, received my elementary education there, and was graduated from High School there, in Hattiesburg, in 1947. I attended the University of Mississippi, I went to the U.S. Army, I was graduated with a BA Degree from the University of Southern Mississippi, then Mississippi Southern College, Hattiesburg. I attended the University of Mississippi, Ole Miss School of Law one year, and was graduated after two years at the George Washington University School of Law in Washington D.C. I'm a lawyer, I am_____to the D.C.
    [Show full text]